The Ghostbusters game

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I really didn't think this was gonna be any good when we first heard about it 18 months or so ago, but it looks amazing! Check it: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/user ... 38315.html
I'm a Ghostbusters-lover and was scared of them fucking up the license, especially since they've got all of the original cast back to do voice-over. But now, I'm just extra certain a PS3-purchase is just minutes away.

For us gamer-tech-geeks... Terminal Realitys physics-engine looks mighty impressive. Havok pales in comparison.

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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Havok is going the way of the dodo anyway - Physx is where it's at (if DAAMIT pull their finger out). 8)

Oh, and it is coming out for the PC, no need to waste your money on a PS3.
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"Of course, Ghostbusters is going to be a family game - it'll be teen rated, so you wont have any dead bodies in the game, this just shows what the physics engine is capable of." -- Yeah, that's a great idea. The first game of your fantastic new physics engine wont even show your ragdoll effects. At least we can be pretty sure that the engine will be licensed out then.

"So yeah, it's great to have all this physics in your game, but if you can't do something with it, what's the point? So in the Ghostbusters video-game [...] we actually have you solve physical puzzles in the environment." -- Congratulations, you can do something that Valve did fantastically 4 years ago.

Sure the physics look pretty swanky, but they're nothing new. I'm still not convinced that the game itself is going to be any more than mediocre either -- we all know you can have a fantastic game engine and still write a shitty game on top of it (coughcrysiscoughut3).

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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_Marcus_ wrote:Oh c'mon, Crysis was a great game. Admit it, you just didn't have the NASA supercomputer to play it ;)
It was really pretty, sure - the engine certainly was impressive - but the gameplay itself was fairly awful once you got down to it (the balance of the weapons was criminal). The storyline was even worse, come to think of it. And don't make me post my computer specs.
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Re: The Ghostbusters game

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I didn't expect much from the storyline tbh. I just wanted them to deliver something new to a tired genre and I think Crysis did that in some way. Good enough for me. Every game can't be Half-Life 2, even though I'd like to.

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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G4 wrote:Following the Atari annoucement of a June 2009 release for Ghostbusters: The Video Game, comes a new brand new trailer and set of screens (including the first look of the Wii version). Set 2 years after the original movie you'll be taking on the role of a new recruit joining the original ghostbusting team. Featuring the meat & potatoes of the original voice talents, beautiful cinematic quality, and of course THE Stay Puft Marshmellow Man... the game looks more than promising to say the least. Nostalgia... mmm... I wonder where I can find a 6-pack of Slimer Hi-C Ecto Cooler.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game heads to the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 (developed by Terminal Reality), Wii, PS2, and Nintendo DS (Red Fly Studios) in June of 2009.
LINK TO SCREENS

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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Ars wrote:The birth, death, and rebirth of the Ghostbusters game

A phantom title?

Over the years, there have been a number of games featuring strange and/or absurdly drawn-out development cycles. Games like Too Human, Daikatana, and Duke Nukem: Forever have all become legendary in the video game industry because of development delays, but few titles have managed to achieve the notoriety in recent memory that Ghostbusters: The Video Game has. Even though it has been in development for less than two years, the supernatural adventure has a supernaturally convoluted history that, at first glance, seems about as easy to pick apart as Alexander's Gordian Knot.

If there was ever a franchise made for a quality video game, Ghostbusters is definitely at the top of the list. While the movies definitely spawned some quality comic and cartoon tie-ins over the past twenty years, every game that has come out has been wholly unimpressive at best, and utterly god-awful at worst. A particularly low point was the 1993 Ghostbusters game for the Game Boy, which was an almost exact copy of Garfield Labyrinth; players just controlled Pete Venkman instead of the obese orange cat. We may not have been afraid of no ghosts, but those crappy games scared the hell out of us.

While there have been a couple of obscure Ghostbusters titles developed for various consoles since that unimpressive handheld title in the early '90s, there certainly hasn't been a game of actual quality. Understandably, the new Ghostbusters game has been the subject of much fascination ever since rumors of the game's development initially began circulating around the web. One of the strangest things about the game's development is that it was actually started by a company with no official involvement with the franchise, nor would it be involved with the game's actual construction.

In 2006, Slovenian developer Zootfly began working on a Ghostbusters game before it had officially acquired the rights to do so. When it released videos of the game engine in action on the web, a considerable amount of buzz was generated by both the press and fans alike due to the fact that it looked like we might finally be in store for a decent Ghostbusters game. Unfortunately, because Zootfly didn't have the rights, Sony promptly had the videos taken down from YouTube, and the developer is now working on a project that involves similar gameplay (dubbed TimeO) but happens to be different enough so as to avoid any possible lawsuits.

Though Zootfly's efforts may have seemed for naught, they were largely responsible for getting the game (as we know it) into development. Terminal Reality co-founder Mark Randal told the Official Xbox Magazine: "what Zootfly did for us, inadvertently, is help sell the concept. When their footage came out, we were close to our green-light meeting, and when the executives saw the reaction from the fans, they immediately knew, 'Hey, Ghostbusters is going to be a big hit—we need to put this game into production.'"

One thing that many fans have wondered about is whether the Ghostbusters game would feature any of the concepts shown by the Zootfly videos. When we spoke to John O'Keefe, Terminal Reality's studio director, he assured us that everything in his company's game was wholly original. "There is nothing from their videos that was used as inspiration for our game," he stated. "At the time of the release of the video we were already seven months into development on the Ghostbusters game. Because we had been sworn to secrecy, no one knew that we were working on the game or even that any game was being worked on."

But, O'Keefe did reveal that Zootfly's leaked footage was still advantageous to Terminal Reality, confirming Randal's earlier comments. "The video did help us... in that it confirmed to Vivendi’s upper management how interested people were in a Ghostbusters game. While a number of people at Vivendi, namely our EP’s John Melchior and Pete Wanat were confident in the popular appeal Ghostbusters has maintained over the years, some others there needed more convincing. I believe Vivendi, at the time, knew the game could sell well, but the incredible reaction to the ZootFly video increased the seriousness of the game from the publisher side even more."

On to Vivendi

Vivendi Universal was chosen to helm the project, and it subsequently handed over the design duties to Terminal Reality, the studio behind such supernatural hits as Nocturne and the BloodRayne titles. As it turns out, Terminal Reality's involvement was rather coincidental, as they were originally dealing with VU to pitch an entirely different title. Creative Director Drew Haworth explained:
We were visiting Vivendi Universal at the time, and we were showing a different IP—an original IP—that we worked on, and also showing off our engine technology. So this is all proprietary technology that we're using, the Infernal engine. And they mentioned that Ghostbusters might be available... in two weeks we had a fully working ball room for the hotel scene, and Slimer, and proxy Ghostbusters with proton streams up and running. And so we had to prove it, and we did prove it a number of times with Sony, there were a couple of things—not just with Sony, the other owners. We realized that we did need to bring it every time and so we did that, and we did a progression of visual demos and gameplay demos that convinced them.
The first real look most of us got was at Sierra's press preview held earlier last year, and what was on display was certainly impressive: much of the game's demo was a showcase of the capabilities of the new engine that Terminal Reality had developed, featuring some truly impressive technological feats. Aside from rendering over 1000 separate NPCs on the screen at a time (and keeping another 500 units in memory), we got to see some impressive physics on display in a recreation of the first movie's scene at the New York Public Library, and in a battle with a ghost that formed its body out of hundreds of individual books. (Of particular interest was a "goo gun" that could hold up objects like cars if used properly, as well as how uniquely objects could break up when they were shot.)

We also got a brief summary of the game's plot: set a couple of years after the second movie, the game is actually considered to be a third film by the franchise's creators; the script was written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, and is set to involve the voice talent of most of the movie's cast, the exceptions being Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis. The game introduces the player as the newest Ghostbuster who's been hired to help the team deal with a surge in paranormal activity in Manhattan; the player also will serve as a guinea pig who tests out Egon Spengler's latest inventions in the field.

The actual level that was shown during the demo showed the team cleaning out an architectural firm's offices of various spooks, including but not limited to what appeared to be the offspring of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (who could be seen lumbering outside the highrise windows) and specters that looked like those that appeared in the courtroom scene from Ghostbusters II. The action sequences definitely appeared chaotic and challenging, and teamwork between players and AI-controlled characters was necessary to capture or destroy some of the more challenging opponents.

Later on that night, I chatted with O'Keefe over drinks at the Ghostbusters-themed party that Sierra held in downtown San Francisco. After grilling him about when I'd get to play the next entry to the Nocturne series (short answer: it's not going to happen anytime soon, if ever), the subject changed to the engine Terminal Reality had developed for their latest game. The engine is useful to have because the company can actually earn a substantial amount of extra income by licensing out such technology, as the studio had done before with its Nocturne Engine back in the earlier part of the decade.

When asked if this was still the case, O'Keefe enthusiastically confirmed that it was, "even more so than before." He went on to fill me in on the engine's popularity since we'd last talked: "At the time you and I talked we were already licensing the Infernal Engine out to a small group of developers. The engine technology was so well-received by those people that we started getting requests to license the engine through word of mouth—even though we had not officially launched the engine yet."

Everyone involved with the game was extremely enthusiastic about its progress, as evidenced both by Sierra's heavy promotion of the title, as well as by how genuinely excited a number of the company's PR team were about it. Now, it isn't all that uncommon to talk with PR folk and be fed a line about how great whatever product they're promoting is, but even after several hours of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, the enthusiasm never waned; this definitely wasn't the case when we discussed some of the other titles that had been on display during the day's event.

Even the members of the press corps, as we huddled together and compared notes, generally agreed that Ghostbusters had been the most impressive thing we'd gotten to see at the event. All in all, it looked like Sierra was going to deliver a game that finally gave the Ghostbusters franchise the respect it deserved, and none of us could wait to get our hands on it.

A merger

And then... the unthinkable happened. In the midst of the game's promotions, the Activision/Blizzard merger occurred, and things took a definite turn.

The merger itself occurred on July 9, shortly after Sierra had announced that Ecto-1 would actually be touring across the country as a part of the summer/fall Hot Import Nights shows. Whether or not the car actually appeared at these shows is a little uncertain, though, because there doesn't seem to have been any press coverage of its appearances. "I am not sure if that happened or not," said O'Keefe before adding, "We were lucky enough to have the Ecto-1 visit our office for a day, along with a 30-foot inflatable Stay Puft. They did an amazing job restoring the Ecto-1. The last time we saw it before restoration, it was abandoned out on the Sony Pictures lot, just bleaching under the sun. It was kind of sad, actually. But now it’s in better shape than it was when they filmed the first movie!"

This was, it should be noted, the second time Ecto-1 had been used to promote the game, as it had been revealed that Vivendi marketing execs had used the restored vehicle to help promote the game on a corporate level earlier in the year.

A couple of weeks after the merger, it was revealed that only a few of Sierra's games would be carried over to the new publisher's lineup: while titles like Spyro, Prototype, and Crash Bandicoot were all kept on the company's platter, other titles like Brutal Legend, Ghostbusters, and 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand were dumped down the metaphorical garbage disposal. While we weren't exactly crying ourselves to sleep over that last decision, many of us were heartbroken to hear about the former two. To say we were surprised about the cancellation of Ghostbusters is an understatement, given that the game was practically completed when the news came down, and Sierra was in the midst of a huge promotional push at the time.

As it turns out, it seems like the news was a shock for everyone on the Vivendi side of things, as well. "Actually, everyone, including the production and business people on the Vivendi side, seemed to think that the game was going to be carried over into the Activision/Blizzard lineup," O'Keefe admitted when we asked him about the cancellation. "It was one of those things that seemed like a no-brainer. We had heard a lot of the Vivendi (or 'Sierra', by that time) games were not being carried over, and that decision point had come and gone. Then, very late in the process the situation changed. It was a surprise for everyone, including the people on the Vivendi side. We were told it was not an easy decision and one that was not made lightly."

Rumors started to fly almost immediately, as is the way of such things, and it wasn't long before people were saying that the game had been canceled. While Sony was quick to stand up and say that the game was only delayed, not canceled, and would be coming out in 2009 to approximately coincide with the first film's 25th anniversary, it wasn't clear who would actually be publishing the game. While that was encouraging to hear, this information just led to more questions, the first and foremost being, "if Sony owns the movie rights to the series, why doesn't it just publish the game itself as a PS3 exclusive?"

Unfortunately, this question seems like it's going to be one of the permanent mysteries left surrounding the game's development. Not even Mr. O'Keefe has an inkling about this: "Only Sony can answer that question. At the time that Activision was shopping the game I had heard that Sony had a lot of interest in it." Now, months later, it's pretty obvious that Sony's interest wasn't enough to get the publisher to take over the reins, something that still seems a little strange.

The game's sudden entry into development limbo didn't mean that it was gone from anyone's memory, though, especially when leftover marketing plans like the lanyards at the Penny Arcade Expo kept on reminding us of the Ghostbuster-shaped hole in our hearts. The real story behind those mysterious lanyards was far more benign than many theories suggested: Sierra had signed up to sponsor the lanyards nearly a year beforehand and had shipped them out that June, shortly before Activision had unceremoniously dumped the game. As Penny Arcade's director of business development Robert Khoo explained to Variety, "We didn't have much of a choice of finding an alternate lanyard provider, so we just ran with it."

While some folks were hoping that the embarrassment of the lanyards might have shamed Activision into rethinking its decision to drop the game, CEO Robert Kotick explained that that wasn't going to happen, because essentially, he couldn't repeatedly mine the franchise for multiple millions of dollars on an annual basis. According to Kotick, games like Ghostbusters "don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises."

Atari to the rescue?

Happily, Dan Aykroyd eventually revealed that the game wasn't doomed to languish unpublished. In a radio interview, Ray Stantz's real-life counterpart said that the title had been picked up by Atari—a publisher that had become saddled with a reputation for unimpressive games of dubious quality—the latest in a string of moves that president Phil Harrison has pulled in an effort to turn the company's performance around. Harrison himself had some kind words to say about the game, revealing that he, too, was a bit of a Ghostbusters fanboy. "The title has built considerable anticipation and excitement among game fans for its high quality action and all-out mayhem," he said when it was officially announced that Atari would publish the title. "There's no more thrilling Ghostbusting experience to be had, short of building your own proton pack."

Also, Harrison seems to politely disagree with Kotick about the potential for the game's saleability. In a recent interview with MCV, he revealed that he doesn't think Kotick's logic led to the best possible outcome with the Ghostbusters game. "What Bobby perhaps unhelpfully said was that those games were franchises which wouldn't make $100m of revenue and generate sequels," he explained. "If that's his benchmark, then fine—and we'd love to aspire to the same benchmarks. But you know what? I would love to turn Ghostbusters into a $100m franchise, just to prove him wrong."

"And sell it back to him!" added Atari CEO David Gardner as an afterthought. O'Keefe mirrored these sentiments when asked about the potential to turn the game into a whole franchise. "Oh, yes, we can definitely see sequels to the game," he said before adding a rather juicy tidbit of information. "Interest in the game seems to have spawned interest in creating a new Ghostbusters movie. There are so many places to take the game and so many more stories to tell."

The fact that Atari has pushed the release date to later this year was definitely a good thing, though, as it has allowed Terminal Reality the opportunity to put some extra layers of polish on its creation. "We have spent a lot of time combing through the story and all the experiences to make sure they are really funny or really scary," O'Keefe confirmed. "Our number one goal for this game was to create an authentic Ghostbusters gameplay experience, which no one has ever done before. We really want to make the player feel like one of the Ghostbusters team, like he or she plays a part in the movies and this great universe. So we’ve used this extra time to make sure we nail delivering that experience for the player."

All things considered, it seems like Ghostbusters: The Game will be one of those games which will (hopefully) deliver everything we want and more, despite its complicated history and the game of Musical Chairs it has been forced to play with publishers. Now that the title seems to have stabilized with a publisher that believes in its potential, it doesn't seem unreasonable to hope for greatness from this game, especially since Terminal Reality has a fair amount of time to apply a heavy layer of polish.

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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Sony had a pretty big display on Ghostbusters at CES this year, pushing both the game and the blu-ray release. What I saw looked somewhat impressive, and I'm not someone who plays video games. But I might buy this one.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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_Marcus_ wrote:GB on Blue-ray? Now THAT's a must buy if there ever was one! Any info on the transfer and extras?
High-Def Digest wrote:Who Ya Gonna Call? 'Ghostbusters' on Blu-ray this June

After months of speculation, Sony has at last confirmed a June Blu-ray debut for the '80s blockbuster 'Ghostbusters.'

One of the most highly-requested titles in the studio's vault since the launch of the Blu-ray format, Sony will release the comedy classic in a long-awaited 25th Anniversary Edition on June 16, day-and-date with a new DVD re-issue.

The confirmation comes after months of painful delays for fans, with Sony originally touting a 'Ghostbusters' Blu release at last year's Comic-Con, only to quickly vaporize a planned October release just a few weeks later.

Newly-remastered, 'Ghostbusters' will be presented on a BD-50 dual-layer disc in 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video. At press time, there are no confirmed audio formats, but we'll keep you posted.

Features exclusive to the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray include the "Slimer Mode" picture-in-picture "Graphical Viewing Experience" which includes an examination of the spook-hunters' firehouse headquarters, an in-depth exploration of the creatures in the Ghostbusters mythology, behind-the-scenes discussions of making the movie, and new cast, crew and special effects artists interviews. Also new is the featurette "Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car," the "Ghostbusters Garage" still gallery and a collectible 32-page booklet.

Extras carried over from the previous DVD edition include audio commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, and Joe Medjuck, a trio of featurettes ("1984 – The Making of Ghostbusters," "Interviews with Cast and Crew," "SFX Team"), deleted scenes and storyboard comparisons.

Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $38.95.

At press time, Sony has not announced a Blu-ray release for 'Ghostbusters II,' but we'll let you know of any further updates.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

Re: The Ghostbusters game

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Ars wrote:Dogs and cats, living together: Ars reviews Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters brings what we loved about the movie to video games, with some great results. This is far from a perfect title, but fans of the movie will quickly overlook the game's few flaws.

Bringing Ghostbusters to video game consoles has been a long, hard journey. We have previously chronicled the different publishers, the uneven path, and the challenges the game went through to get to this magical place: launch. The game was shown at E3, where it was accompanied by Ecto-1 at the front entrance of the Convention Center and costumed 'Busters roaming the halls for pictures. Tuesday, you'll finally be able to purchase the game on your choice of platforms. We received our copy last week, and we have good news: it was worth the wait.

Terminal Reality and the game's writers had quite the challenge: creating something new while respecting the films that came before. You'll see familiar faces in this game, and I'm not going to ruin them if you've not paid attention to the marketing materials, but the backstories of the ghosts and their place in the world have been more fleshed out. Background characters from the film show up, voiced by the real actors, and they add a ton of authenticity to the game. The only holdouts are Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver—Alyssa Milano pales in comparison to Weaver, in my humble opinion—but everyone else is here, including Annie Potts. (Am I the only one who had something of a crush on Janine?)

The real stars of the game are the Ghostbusters themselves, of course, and it's odd to see Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson as younger, spry versions of themselves in the game. The voices really sell the game; it's almost as if all the principal actors are channeling themselves from the past. The effect is a little eerie, but great. Wait until you see the opening scenes before the music kicks in—it really does feel like a new Ghostbusters film.

That movie-like presentation extends to the gameplay; you'll find some sequences where you'll need to cool your heels while the characters talk out what to do next. You see, your character is only named "the Rookie." His job is to test new equipment, and an actual name would merely get in the way if he were to be blown up. This gives you a great set of eyes to watch the game through, and also explains why you get all the cool toys first. Your proton pack will have multiple firing modes by the time you finish the game, and while some are more useful than others, the neat animations and changes the hardware goes through as you switch between them will make the pack even more of an object of geek lust. Cosplayers are going to have a lot to live up to after the game is released.

The combat consists of zapping ghosts until you weaken them enough to wrangle them (and slam them around a few times) before dragging them into your trap. While I had initial doubts about how this mechanic would work, the act of shooting with the proton pack, throwing a trap, and then keeping them in your beam long enough for them to be caught is great, and fulfills every 'busting fantasy I had as a young man. You'll get power-ups throughout the game, which makes catching ghosts easier, but starting you off by forcing you to emulate the movies was a wise choice. Yes, it's true: bustin' makes you feel good.

You don't know what it's like out there! I've worked in the private sector, they expect results
The characters move rather slowly for an action game, and that can lead to a few frustrations in the harder battles, where you'll have to get more creative and use multiple weapons to win. In fact, you'll want to get ready for some serious controller-throwing moments in the middle of the game. The deliberate pace continues with the PKE Goggles, which moves the view from third-person to first-person as you put them on to track down paranormal activity using your meter's readings. These sections let you explore your environments, which were, in a few places, almost scary. While the game remains light and funny, the tension and disquiet present in many environments is very real. Still, it's hard not to love a game where you earn achievements for property damage created when chasing ghosts, and where your character is so expendable that the rest of the guys dangle you off the side of a building to fight a huge ghoul while critiquing your technique.

This isn't a perfect game. The pathing of the other characters can be a little maddening when you're working as a team and trying to trigger the next event by moving forward, and the frame rate had some serious problems in places. When a character "dies" he gets knocked down and it's up to you to revive him. If everyone gets knocked down, the game is over and you have to start at the last save point. This creates some annoying moments where a cheap attack wipes out the team, or the AI makes a bad choice about how to get to you, causing a character's demise.

The pacing, the interactions, and the way the game isn't afraid to pause for some dialog and exposition give the whole package a very unique feel, with plenty of little touches that will delight fans of the movies. (Well, the first movie at least, since the second film is barely touched upon.)

If you don't mind a third-person title that looks like an action game (but takes the slow route to get there) you're going to love how well the feeling of the films is nailed in the game. You can also take advantage of a good variety of competitive or cooperative multiplayer modes where you're trying to destroy as much property as possible, or capture the most ghosts, or simply stay alive.

Online play is much more action-packed than the single-player game, and playing with friends as the whole team is a blast, although it seems like it may wear thin quickly. Having prerelease copies meant that finding games online could be something of a challenge, but when we had four players online it was a good time. Playing online isn't a huge selling point, but it certainly gives the game more life after the single-player story mode has been completed.

The game coincides with the movie's 25th anniversary, and it's amazing how Ghostbusters has become such a big piece of pop culture. Who doesn't hate Walter Peck? Who hasn't fantasized about owning a proton pack? Who doesn't get drunk, only to pee next to their friends and make jokes about crossing the streams?

Er... right?

The game is definitely worth your time if you're a fan of the movie, or just if you're in the mood for something that feels a little different than your normal third-person shooter. I recently watched the original film again with my kids and it holds up great. This is a franchise with a lot of life left in it.

A few notes on the various versions
This review is good for the 360 and PS3 versions of the game. [Update: the 360 features some pretty impressive graphical improvements over the PS3 version. Read more about the head to head comparisons] The PC version features the same single-player game, but no online game, although it does require you to be online to authenticate the title. The Wii version features Wiimote support, a much more cartoony look and feel, and it's a shorter game, although you can play split-screen co-op throughout the campaign. The DS version is a top-down shooter.

The verdict also applies to the PS3 and 360 versions, and depending on how important multiplayer is to you, the PC version. We haven't had enough time with the other two versions to render any kind of verdict, but we'll try for a follow-up post on those titles in the near future.

The Good
* The original cast returns, in both virtual form and through the voices
* Touches on, and expands, the stories of favorite baddies from the movies
* The proton packs remain one of the best fetish objects for tech-geeks
* Slower, deliberate pace allows room for tension and character
* Online play gives the game legs
* The first-person segments spice things up very well

The Bad
* The AI characters can have trouble getting around
* There are some annoying deaths
* Expect some oddly difficult battles in the game
* Pacing can drag at times

The Ugly
* If this game sells well, expect a ton of other '80s classics to be turned into games... and can a Real Genius Wii title be anything but terrible?

Verdict: Buy